The Mummy
by Evelyn Brightpaw
Summary: My novelization of the first movie - and not like one of those crappy half-inch paperbacks that come out right before the premiere; it's the whole movie, as is on screen, minus curse words and plus all the thoughts and stuff that a movie can't give.
1. Chapter 1

Thebes; City of the Living; crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti I; a golden city upon golden waters under a golden Egyptian sun. Thebes, with its wide ways and statues that dared the gods with their soaring heights. Thebes, with its royal palace overlooking a sparkling city and sparkling waters, to which Seti on this day was making his glorious return. Thebes, the home of Imhotep – Pharaoh's high priest, Keeper of the Dead; birthplace of Anakh-sun-amun, the Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her. But for their love… they were willing to risk life itself.

They met at sundown, the priest and the mistress, behind golden doors and shimmering curtains. The lesser priests Imhotep had stationed as guards looked like part of the statuary, their gilded skin blending almost completely with the doors behind them. He took her in his arms with all the urgency of knowing their time would be short and their further opportunities few. But they had forgotten their limitations; Anakh-sun-amun's arms had been covered in sacred painted symbols and shimmering oils. Now they were covered in unmistakable smudges, in the shape of Imhotep's hands.

Pharaoh Seti I threw his weight against the golden double doors, barging through the line of frightened priests set to guard them. His kohl-darkened brows came together.

"What are _you_ doing here?" But he didn't wait for the answer to his question. Instead, he made his way expectantly toward the private room behind the curtains. With a snap of his wrists he flung back the gauzy linen partition, revealing Anakh-sun-amun – a coy look on her beautiful face and one arm resting innocently on a golden statue of Sekhmet. Despite his mistress's stance, Seti's quick eyes soon found exactly what he had expected. He pointed accusingly at her arm. "Who has touched you!?" The girl's eyes drifted guiltily down to the smeared paint; as she lifted her gaze, she unwittingly caught the eyes of the man who stood quietly at the Pharaoh's back. Seti caught the glance and turned. "Imhotep?! My priest!!"

These were the Pharaoh's final words in his beloved Thebes. Imhotep took Seti's sword from its scabbard and plunged its gilded length into his ruler's body. Anakh-sun-amun followed suit, piercing Seti's back with the dagger she had kept hidden behind hers. Their hearts thumped loudly in their chests – but not so loud that they couldn't hear the marching approach of the palace guards.

"Pharaoh's bodyguards!" Imhotep gasped as he pulled the sword free of its bloody sheath. Anakh-sun-amun grasped his arm.

"Go, save yourself!"

"No!"

"Only you can resurrect me!" Imhotep's jaw clenched; her eyes implored him to go, to prepare for the rituals that would bring her back from the death that was now unavoidable. His priests had taken his arms now, pulling him toward a hidden door.

"Get away from me, leave me alone!" He continued to struggle with them until he met her gaze again; he only just stopped his tears as she silently traced his face with her trembling hand. Then he was pulled backward from the room, calling to her as he went, "You shall live again! I will resurrect you!!" The secret door closed on them as the curtains were ripped open. A dumbfounded squad of guards stopped short over the body of the Pharaoh, then stared at Anakh-sun-amun questioningly. She answered with defiance.

"My body is no longer his temple!" Before any of them could stop her, she buried the dagger hilt-deep in her own torso.

To resurrect Anakh-sun-amun, Imhotep and his priests broke into her crypt and stole her body. They raced deep into the desert, taking Anakh-sun-amun's corpse to Hamunaptra, City of the Dead, burial site for the sons of pharaohs and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. For his love, Imhotep dared the gods' anger by going deep inside the city, where he took the black Book of the Dead from its holy resting place.

Anakh-sun-amun's soul had been sent to the dark Underworld, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars. These now stood in a careful arrangement around her black-shrouded body, which had been laid out on a stone table in the lowest chamber of the city. Imhotep's priests knelt in a circle around it, intoning sacred verses, waiting for the ritual to begin. With one wistful glance at her lifeless face, Imhotep began reading from the black Book. The sacred pool nearby began bubbling as the gateway to the Underworld was opened; a dark, fluid shape emerged from the waters, making its way to the body on the table. The corpse shook, its eyes flickered open. Anakh-sun-amun's soul had come back from the dead. Imhotep, his eyes flashing, lifted the ritual knife high; but he couldn't bring it down – a strong hand held his wrist firmly in place. Pharaoh's bodyguards had followed him, and they stopped him before the ritual could be completed. Anakh-sun-amun's soul returned to the sacred pool with a resounding splash; Imhotep let out a strangled cry as his tried to follow her. The guards wrestled the knife from his hand as they dragged him to the _sah-netjer_, the embalmers' room, to meet his fate.

Imhotep's priests were condemned to be mummified alive. As for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the _hum-dai_, the worst of all ancient curses, one so horrible it had never before been bestowed. His tongue was removed, his writhing, struggling body wrapped in layer upon layer of linen; he was then placed, wriggling and half-suffocated, into an un-engraved and unprepared coffin. This was then filled to the brim with the hissing contents of a cauldron – thousands of flesh-eating scarabs, their bodies iridescent in the flickering torchlight as they searched for an opening in the bandages. Then the coffin was closed, forever, locked with a key held by the head guard and buried under the watchful stone eyes of the god Anubis.

He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all eternity. The guards would never allow him to be released, for he would arise as a walking disease, a plague upon mankind – an unholy flesh eater with the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility.

I

A Desert Battle

Hamunaptra, 1923

For three thousand years, men and armies fought over this land, never knowing what evil lay beneath it. And for three thousand years, the Medjai – descendants of Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards – kept watch. This day was no different.

Formed up for battle against Hamunaptra's ruined outer walls, the ranks of the French Foreign Legion quivered collectively at the piercing war cries of an approaching Arab army. Their commander did more than that; he spurred his horse and left the field, attacked by a sudden wave of cowardice. Two soldiers turned to watch him go. One of them, a slim and weasely Hungarian named Beni, turned to the man beside him.

"You just got promoted," he said matter-of-factly. Richard O'Connell simply turned his chiseled face back toward the advancing enemy. It was a face that had been tanned by the sun of countless places, and that had taken little real pleasure in any of them; a face that had taken the blows of countless fists without damage, and the acid of countless jeers without even blinking. Sharp green eyes took in everything and gave away nothing. A bead of sweat slipped down the slightly creased forehead to trickle down the channel cut through the right eyebrow by a scar almost old enough to be forgotten. Rick allowed his cheek to caress the steel of the gun that was tucked against his shoulder like an old friend, a childhood toy. Sometimes a gun was the only thing a man had that made sense, that never changed, that could always be counted on. Taking his place in the stead of his runaway commander, he called out his first orders in urgent and unfamiliar French. The fierce battle cry of the Arabs was ringing in their ears, unsettling a few of those men less accustomed to the field of combat.

"Steady!" Rick called to calm his men. Turning slightly to Beni he asked, "You're with me on this one, right?" Beni nodded nervously, his Hungarian accent growing thicker with his increasing fear, sounding shrill and out of place against Rick's smooth, flat American baritone.

"Oh, your strengt gives me strengt." Rick curled his lip slightly, unconvinced. It had been his experience that his comrade in arms most often had a strength that lasted a grand total of five seconds. He didn't even need to look to confirm his suspicions. Beni's nerve failed him as the Arabs approached, their horses' hooves shaking the ruins around him. With a shake of his head, the little man jumped up, threw down his gun, and ran after his former commander, calling to him in desperation. "Vait for me!!" Rick shook his head quickly in disgust, returning his attention to the advancing enemy. They were closing. It was all about timing, now. How many times had that rule saved him? That instinct his father had trained into him as a child, matching his pulse with the movements of his opponent, and choosing the right heartbeat with which to time his shot? He took a deep breath, watched, and waited.

"Fire!!" Scores of French Foreign Legion bullets flew into the ranks of the enemy, and Rick's heart skipped a beat as he caught the harsh metallic scent of gun smoke. It thrilled him, as did the jolt of the gun against his collarbone, the thud that traveled down through his core and made his limbs tingle. But, in war as in all else, turnabout was fair play. The Arabs fired as the Legion soldiers struggled to reload, thinning the ranks around Rick by nearly a third. He looked up and cursed through his teeth; clearly the mounted and mobile Arabs had the advantage, with newer guns that were much quicker to reload. He took out three or four with well-placed shots before backing away reluctantly as the enemy's frontrunners galloped over the wall, nearly trampling him. He fired again. _'Last shot,'_ he thought blankly. _'And... a hit! That would be what, number 24 today, I think… whoa – !'_ The Arab horseman was almost in his face, having charged up from behind. Deciding against reloading, he shoved the muzzle of his gun into the man's face, pushing him off his horse and likely taking off half his nose. Again there was no time to reload. He threw the rifle and pulled a pair of pistols from the holsters at his sides. Going at a backwards run, he shot in a fanning motion, felling Arabs in a semicircle. _'Great. Out again.'_ He tossed these guns aside like the first and pulled two more from holsters at his back. Having then used every lethal projectile in his possession, he brained two Arabs with the empty pistols and ran from the three now on his tail.

Taking a flying leap over a low wall, he spied Beni crouching in a doorway pock-marked by time and bullets. He called to him. "Run, Beni! Run!" Beni turned with a start to see his old partner and new commander being pursued by a posse of several determined-looking Arab horsemen. "Get inside. Get inside!" Rick screamed, although a part of him paused long enough to wonder why he was bothering. Without hesitation, Beni followed Rick's advice. He scuttled inside the ancient shrine…and began pushing the door closed. Rick saw the motion and groaned inwardly – not that he hadn't expected as much. "Hey, don't you close that door – don't you close that door!!" Too late. He whirled around and ducked as two shots ricocheted off the now sealed door. Running a short distance, he threw himself into a somersault over an overturned column, landing in a cloud of sand. Two of the Arabs were still chasing him, and he stopped short as he caught sight of three more coming at him from another direction. Finding a gap in the oncoming ranks, he ran – until he found himself cornered against a statue that looked as worn as he did. Turning to face the horsemen, he realized with a defiant smirk how much he resembled a criminal before a firing squad (a situation he had already evaded twice in his life). They readied their guns. Richard O'Connell took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and prepared himself for what he guessed had been all of his twenty-odd years in coming. What he found instead, upon opening his eyes a few uneventful moments later, came as a pleasant surprise.

The Arabs were falling off their horses in their haste to get away from…something. Slowly Rick relaxed his face. They were gone. He was safe. _'Wait…' _ He turned around to look for whatever had frightened them off. All he saw was the statue. Anubis, ancient Egyptian god of the dead. Nothing abnormal… except for the strange whispered chanting that seemed to leak from its stone mouth. Then something else made him turn back around. A rogue wave of sand hit him like a breaker on a beach. He dodged right, then left; everywhere he went, another wave of sand lunged up to meet him. In a half-panic, he dropped to his knees and crawled out of the way. Where he had been standing moments before, an open-mouthed face stared up at him from the sand, and a roaring noise filled the air. He had never been one to run from a fight, never been shy about confronting a threat… but sand that moved like a living thing? Sometimes retreat was the most sensible option. He found his feet and was out of the city before the last of the sand had settled.

It was near sunset. The Arabs had fled. Rick began making his stumbling way across the desert, unarmed, unprovisioned, and uneasy. From a high rocky outcropping above the ruins, a band of Medjai watched him go.

"The creature remains undiscovered," their leader declared quietly. One of them stepped up to question him.

"And what of this one?" the older man asked, indicating the shrinking figure of Rick O'Connell on the sands below. "Should we kill him?"

"No." The leader shook his head. "The desert will kill him."


	2. Chapter 2

II

Jonathan's Discovery

Cairo, 1926

In the library of the Museum of Antiquities, Evelyn Carnahan and her ladder leaned precariously against the top of the bookcase labeled "S." A pair of thick rimmed eyeglasses was perched equally precariously on the end of her nose, struggling to maintain their position as she angled her face downward to squint at titles and labels. Evelyn was the picture of prim bookishness, of structure and academia at their purest. Her long chestnut curls were pinned up in a perfectly round bun, with not one hair out of place; a few ringlets had managed to work themselves out from under the earpieces of her eyeglasses to frame her face. If one looked closely enough, a good angle of light might reveal the remnants of freckles that she had only recently grown out of. Her shirt was starched, her skirt stiff and pleated, so although corsets had gone out of style, Evelyn always appeared to be wearing one. Peeping out from beneath the hem of the skirt were two slim ankles ringed by sagging stockings and two feet clad in a pair of very proper, comfortable – and therefore very unstylish – shoes, the heels of which were the only thing keeping her balanced on the ladder. The only color she wore that wasn't a neutral beige or white was the green scarf she wore like a necktie, which served to conceal the rather attractive curve of her chest, and highlighted the green of her eyes. She was filing away some old books, murmuring the titles to herself as she placed them on the shelf.

"…_Sacred Stones_…_Sculpture and Aesthetics_…_Socrates_…_Seth_ – Volume one, volume two, and …volume…three…and _T – Tuthmosis_? What are you doing here? T…T, T, T, T…. Ah." She spied the correct section on the shelf behind her. "I'm going to put you where you belong." Stuffing the other books she was holding onto an empty shelf, she leaned over to put the biography of Pharaoh Tuthmosis with its fellows. As she stretched, her ladder gave a warning grumble. "Oooh!!" Just as she had managed to slide the book onto the "T" shelf, the ladder had followed Evelyn's momentum and now stood up like stilts beneath her. The librarian gave out a little yelp of terror as the ladder wobbled, but she was finally able to balance it.

"Um…help…ooh…oh, oh dear…." Evelyn tried to breathe slowly, tried not to move, tried not to do anything that would tip the delicate balance. She should call louder for help… but what if the vibration of her voice caused her to fall? She pursed her lips; the fear crept into her mind that this would be another disaster like the three she had already caused that week. She knew the fiasco at the gallery opening had been her fault. The museum patrons had been furious when that curtain had fallen and draped them all in musty old velvet. Lady Bevington had lost her jeweled opera glasses, and a few posh hats had been irrevocably ruined. Then there had been the incident with Patricia St. John's children; she had no real excuse, of course, but she had been so caught up in the final chapters of _Jane Eyre_, and the children had gotten away from her somehow… and before she realized they were gone, the lamp and antique vase in the Curator's office had both been smashed. She held her breath as the ladder shifted beneath her again, digging her nails into the top rung. She felt that the whole car mess was Jonathan's fault, of course, but she supposed she could have done more to prevent her brother getting his hands on it in the haze he'd been in – and she had certainly had no clue what to do behind the wheel of one of those things. The curator had been more concerned with the damage to his motorcar than the fact that she had managed to avoid hitting the 12th dynasty statue.

The ladder wobbled again. This time, it didn't stop, despite her frantic efforts to stabilize it. The young woman shrieked as the ladder fell against the shelf. She hit the floor; so did the bookcase. Evelyn covered her ears against the din of falling books – which continued long after the "S" shelf was down. Someone in times past had arranged the cases in a large circle; so as each shelf fell it tumbled into the next, creating a loud and destructive domino effect. '_Oh. No. OH. NO. NO. STOP. OH,' _she heard herself thinking with each crash. In less than twenty seconds, the shaken librarian was standing in a ring of fallen shelves and heaps of torn books. Was this better or worse than the curtain disaster? One of the fallen shelves shifted, and a page from a biography of Hatshepsut fluttered through the air mockingly. Very decidedly worse. She reached up and pulled off her glasses.

"Oops." Almost immediately, she heard the anxious footsteps of the curator in the hallway. He came stumbling in, tripping over dusty volumes, and stared at the mess as she turned to face him.

"Wh- What…. How…." the grey-bearded man whispered as he stepped over a shelf. "Look at this!! Sons of the Pharaohs!" he spluttered. "Give me frogs! Flies! Locusts! Anything…but you!" He flailed his arms wildly, as if he were Moses conjuring up a cloud full of God's wrath to rest over Evelyn's head. "Compared to you, the other plagues were a joy!!" Evelyn's lip quivered.

"I am so very sorry, it was an accident." The curator sighed at her.

"My darling girl… when Rameses destroyed Syria – that was an accident. You…are a catastrophe! Look at my library!! Wh- why do I put up with you??" Evelyn smiled eagerly – after all the time she'd worked here, she had this answer memorized.

"Well, you put up with me because…mm…because I can read and write ancient Egyptian…and I can decipher hieroglyphics and hieratic… and – well – I am the only person within a thousand miles who knows how to properly code and… and catalog this library, that's why." She straightened up and tilted her head back, swelling a bit with a sort of academic pride.

The curator had begun to correct her before she stopped speaking. "I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons, that's why. Allah rest their souls." Evelyn bowed her head as her employer collected his emotions. He was never above using her dead parents to make her guilty. "Now: I don't care how you do it…I don't care how long it takes…straighten up this _meshivah_!!" With an upward jerk of his eyebrows, he stormed out. The hapless librarian gazed around blankly as if searching for a starting point. _'Oh, well. I suppose all the shelves needed a good dusting, anyway, _she thought glumly. Suddenly, a dull sound from another part of the building caused her to turn; something was moving in the main display room. Stepping gingerly over the debris, she tiptoed toward the darkened room to investigate. A looter. That was all she needed right now. Inside the doorway, she took a torch from the grasp of a guardian statue.

"Hello?" She picked her way timidly through the maze of statues, cases, and coffins, nervously hoping it was only a coworker shifting boxes in the after-hours gloom. She called to them to be sure. "Abdul? ....Mohammed? ….Bob?" She stopped. She had heard it again – and no one was in sight. Evelyn glanced around and couldn't believe her ears: the sound seemed to emanate from a nearby sarcophagus. She eased over to it, noticing a bit too late the glow that came from inside.

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!" Evelyn shrieked, nearly dropping her torch. The mummy inside had jerked upright – followed a few seconds later by her brother Jonathan, who was laughing hysterically. His dark mop of hair looked rather the worse for wear after being pressed against the coffin's interior, and a few bits of ancient linen were stuck in his cowlick like three-thousand year old dandruff. His khaki expedition outfit stood out brightly against his newly acquired tan. Evelyn found a bracket for her torch and immediately began berating her elder sibling. "Have you no respect for the dead?!" she gasped. Jonathan chuckled a bit drunkenly and put a friendly arm around the mummy's shoulders.

"Of course I do, but sometimes," he began, propping a mummified elbow on the coffin's edge, "I'd rather like to join them." He grinned, thinking a bit absurdly that he looked like a passenger in a stone motorcar, with his desiccated companion as driver. Evelyn was immensely annoyed.

"Well I wish you would do it sooner rather than later before you…ruin my career the way you've ruined yours. Now get out." She punctuated her last command with a slap on his cheek. Jonathan swung his leg over the side of the coffin in a wobbly attempt to extricate himself.

"My dear…sweet…baby sister, I'll have you…know…that at this precise moment my career is on a high note!" He staggered and almost fell as his feet hit the museum floor, and he concealed a giggle. His sister scoffed.

"High note, ha! Oh, Jonathan, please. I'm really not in the mood for you…I've just made a bit of a mess in the library,… and the Bembridge Scholars have rejected my application form again. They say 'I don't have enough experience in the field'." With a sigh, she sat down hard on the base of a column. Her brother concealed a hiccup and stumbled over, kneeling in front of her. He didn't allow himself to think of what 'a bit of a mess' might mean.

"You'll always have me, ol' mum." He smiled an old familiar smile, of the kind siblings so often share, and they both laughed out of habit. "Besides," he continued, playfully tugging at her chin, "I have just the thing to cheer you up!" He returned to the sarcophagus and began searching for something around and under the mummy's limbs.

"Oh, no, Jonathan," Evelyn began to protest. "Not another worthless trinket. If I have to take one more piece of junk to the curator to try and…sell for you…." She trailed off. Jonathan was holding a boxlike, octagonal metal artifact directly under her nose. It was the size of his palm, carved on all sides with hieroglyphs and topped with an image of a scarab beetle. Evelyn could barely catch her breath. "Where did you get this?" she whispered incredulously.

"On a dig down in…ah…Thebes. My whole life, I've never found anything, Evie, please tell me I've found something." For a moment she didn't answer. She twisted the sides of the little octagonal box, and the top flipped open, rather like a brass flower blossoming, revealing a secret compartment. Snug inside it was a folded piece of papyrus.

"Jonathan…"

"Yes?"

"I think you've found something." Evie smiled in pure academic joy as she unfolded the papyrus, revealing…a map.



"You see the cartouche there? It's the official royal seal of Seti I, I'm sure of it," lectured Evie as she spread the papyrus map carefully on the curator's desk. He glanced at it through a magnifying lens.

"Perhaps," the older man murmured, seemingly uninterested.

"Two questions," interjected Jonathan, who had been listening from the corner of the room. " 'Who the devil was Seti I,' and, 'Was he rich'?" Evie smiled, recognizing her brother's familiar train of thought.

"He was the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty – said to be the wealthiest pharaoh of them all." Jonathan rubbed his hands together absently and grinned to himself.

"Good. I like this fellow. I like him very much." He twisted the gold ring on his smallest finger compulsively, his mind starting to project images of The Great Jonathan Carnahan having his picture made for some scientific society's magazine holding up his new best friend – a solid gold Pharaoh Seti. How many pounds would he get for that, he wondered? Evie allowed her brother to continue his fantasies and turned back to the curator.

"I've already dated the map. It's almost three thousand years old; and if you look at the hieratic just here…" she pointed to a specific section of the map. "…well… it's Hamunaptra." Both men shot curious glances at her; the curator followed his with a smug chuckle.

"Dear God, don't be ridiculous. We're…scholars, not treasure hunters. Hamunaptra is a myth, told by ancient Arab storytellers to amuse Greek and Roman tourists." Evie pursed her lips, her brows folding into the accustomed crease of a scholar who is never taken seriously.

"Yes, yes, I know all the silly blather about the city being protected by the 'curse of a mummy' nonsense, but – my research has led me to believe that the city itself may have actually existed."

"Are we talking about the Hamunaptra?" Jonathan gasped, leaning over the desk. Evie smiled and nodded.

"Yes. The City of the Dead. Where the earliest pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt." Jonathan rubbed his hands together again, his eyes glazing over at the mention of the word 'wealth.' He finished her description, staring across the room at a film projector only he could see.

"Yes…in a big…underground treasure chamber," he mumbled dreamily, almost salivating.

"Huh," the curator scoffed, not even looking up at them.

"Oh, come on, everybody knows the stories." Jonathan folded his arms as the curator continued to ignore him. "The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand at Pharaoh's command…a flick of a switch and the whole place would disappear beneath the sand dunes – taking the treasure with it." The curator rolled his eyes and held the map up to a lamp's flame, disinterestedly studying its border.

"Hmm, as the Americans would say, it's all 'fairytales and hokum' – Oh, my goodness, look at…!" He dropped the map instinctively and it drifted slowly to the floor, its corner still in flames from its close encounter with the lamp. Evie and Jonathan rushed around the desk to pat it out. As they lifted the fragile papyrus up from the singed Persian rug, Jonathan appeared sick.

"You've burnt it…you've burnt off the part with the lost city!" He looked up at the old man at the desk, who looked him in the eyes grimly.

"It's for the best, I'm sure. Many men have wasted their lives in foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra. No one's ever found it. Most…have never returned."


	3. Chapter 3

III

Quest for the Lost City

"Come, come, step over se treshold. Velcome to Cairo Prison, my humble home." The Warden was leading Evie and Jonathan through the grounds of the city's largest prison. He was a foul-smelling little man, nearly as wide as he was tall, with an ugly hook to his nose and at least an inch of dirt layering his entire body. Jonathan smiled anxiously and turned to his sister, but Evie was in a foul temper.

"You told me you got it on a dig down in Thebes!"

"Yes, well I was mistaken," her brother replied, trying to dodge the look she was giving him and behaving altogether too nervously for her liking.

"Jonathan, you lied to me!"

"I lie to everybody," retorted Jonathan. "What makes you so special?" His sister attempted to kick him in the shin.

"Well I am your sister," she replied huffily. Jonathan chuckled at this, not meeting her gaze.

"That just makes you more gullible." Annoyed, Evie began to walk faster, dragging Jonathan by the arm he had linked with hers.

"Jonathan, you stole it from a drunk at the local _casbah_!" He tried to turn her around to go back to the entrance.

"Picked his pocket, actually, so I don't think this is –"

"Jonathan, stop being so ridiculous!" She spun him back around as if on a pivot, and turned back to the Warden. "Now what exactly is this man in prison for?" The Warden stopped at the bars and turned his rotund little body toward her.

"Well dis I did not know. But when I heard you were coming, I asked him dat myself."

"And what did he say?" prompted Evie as she dragged her brother up to the cell.

"He said 'he was just looking for a good time'." As he concluded this statement, amidst much shouting and cursing, two guards threw open a door and flung a ragged young man out into the space between the inner cell and the bars. Evie jumped back, alarmed at his demeanor and appearance. His unkempt hair, only a shade darker than the dirt and sand that were matted in it, straggled down to his shoulders like the mane of a wild desert horse; his sun-bronzed skin was covered with dirt and caked with blood and sweat; and his torn and stained clothing gave him a look of general filth. Quick, dark green eyes darted to and fro, taking in everything around him at a glance. Those eyes were at once both frightening and captivating. _Well, he seems to be the typical criminal. Still, _Evie thought_, there might be a handsome face under all that if one would take the time and effort to dig through the filth and find it. If._ The man glanced up at Jonathan from the kneeling position he had been forced into. Evie shook her brother's arm.

"This…. This is the man that you stole it from?" Jonathan was busily searching for an exit.

"Yes, exactly, so why don't we just go and sniff out a spot of tiff, and – "

"Who're you?" the prisoner grumbled with disinterest, then glanced at Evie – with slightly more interest. "And who's the broad?" Evie was taken aback by his brazen manner.

"Broad?! I…." Jonathan stepped in between his sister and the prisoner before her indignation got the better of her.

"I'm just a local…sort of…missionary chap, y'know, spreading the Good Word, and all that, but…this is my sister, Evie." He nudged her forward; she moved reluctantly.

"How do you do," she replied, attempting a polite smile. The prisoner looked her over as if appraising an item for purchase.

"Yeah, well. Guess she's not a total loss." Evie's attempts at quiet indignation were shattered.

"I beg your pardon!" This time, her wrath was tempered by a commotion across the yard. The Warden called something in an angry Arabic, then half-turned to Jonathan.

"I will be back in a moment," he murmured absently as he hurried away. The prisoner was still watching the disturbance; Jonathan murmured something about the box, and Evie decided it was time to return to the matter at hand.

"We've found…um…hello, excuse me…" Evie began. The man looked back at her slowly and she continued. "We've both found your…your puzzle box, and we've come to ask you about it."

"No." The criminal shook his head. Evie stared at him, puzzled.

"No?"

"No. You came to ask me about Hamunaptra." Evie's eyebrows shot up as Jonathan held a finger to his lips, glancing around to ensure no one had heard. The girl moved closer to the bars.

"How did you know that the box pertains to Hamunaptra?" The prisoner answered with bland disinterest.

"Because that's where I was when I found it. I was there." Before Evie could respond, Jonathan inserted himself into the conversation, pressing his face up to the bars. He eyed the man suspiciously.

"How do we know that's not a load of pig's wallow?" The man in the cell answered question with question.

"Do I know you?" Jonathan suddenly smiled nervously and shook his head.

"No…no, no, no, I've just got one of those faces –" The prisoner's fist came through the bars like a rocket, catching Jonathan square on the mouth. He hit the ground, and the guards hit the prisoner, beating him until they felt he was subdued enough. Evie stepped absently over her fallen sibling.

"You were actually at Hamunaptra?!" she exclaimed. The man grinned, savoring the excitement he had stirred up.

"Yeah, I was there." Evie was suspicious.

"Do you swear?" He offered a swear word in reply. "No, I didn't mean that, I –"

"I know what you meant," the prisoner chuckled dryly. "I was there. 'Seti's place'… 'City of the Dead'…." Evie moved closer to the bars.

"Could…could you tell me how to get there?" The man raised his eyebrows, sensing an opportunity floating before him. "I mean, the exact location," she continued, pulling her hat down to hide her lips from any curious onlookers.

"D'you wanna know?" the man asked.

"Well, yes."

"D'you really wanna know?"

"Y…yes!"

"Come 'ere," he whispered, gesturing for her to come closer. She moved forward until her face was almost between the bars. Without warning, she found herself on the receiving end of a rather ardent kiss. He kept hold of her face for a few seconds after their lips parted. "Then get me out of here!" He threw a few punches at the guards before his chains were replaced and he was dragged bodily back inside. As the door slammed, he called out, "Do it, lady!" Evie turned frantically to the Warden, who had just returned.

"Where are they taking him??"

"To be hanged," the plump man replied with more than a bit of pleasure. "Apparently, he had a very good time!"



"I will give you 100 pounds to save this man's life!" Evie was sitting with the Warden in the balcony overlooking the gallows.

"Madam," began the Warden, "I would pay £100 just to see him hanged!"

"Two!! Two hundred pounds!" cried Evie desperately as she watched her key to the lost city being led up to the gallows. The Warden shook his head.

"Proceed…." he called to the executioner, who dropped the noose around the man's neck.

"300 pounds!" Evie gasped, glancing down at the gallows where the prisoner stood shuffling his feet impatiently.

"Any last requests, pig?" sneered the executioner as he jerked the noose tight.

"Yeah," the man grumbled, struggling against the choking pressure on his vocal chords. "Loosen the knot and let me go." The executioner looked questioningly up at the Warden and squeaked out a query in Arabic.

The fat official threw back an Arabic curse, followed by, "Of course you don't let him go!" and a second curse. Feeling foolish, the executioner slapped the prisoner on the back of the head.

"500 pounds!" Evie yelled. The Warden immediately held up his hand and the executioner paused.

"And what else?" he asked, sliding his eyes down her body. "I am a very lonely man." He reached over and fondled her leg, receiving a sharp slap on the hand from Evie's clutch. The hordes of prisoners brought out to witness the execution laughed uproariously. Ego and hand stinging, the Warden made a snap decision. He gave the signal for the executioner to drop the trap door.

"No!" Evie shot out of her chair. The prisoner, her key to Hamunaptra, was dangling at the end of the rope, squirming, kicking, and gasping for air.

"Ah," cried the Warden in disappointment as Evie sat back down. "His neck did not break! Oh, I'm so sorry. Now we must watch him strangle to death." Evie peered at him anxiously, hating to divulge the secret – but knowing what greed could do in her favor.

"He knows the location to Hamunaptra," she whispered. The Warden eyed her suspiciously.

"You lie."

"I would never!" The Warden turned from her to look at the wriggling prisoner.

"Are you telling me this… filthy, godless… son of a pig… knows where to find the City of the Dead? Truly??"

"Yes!" Evie gasped; there was hope yet. "And if you cut him down we will give you… ten percent!"

"Fifty percent!" barked the Warden.

"Twenty," Evie bargained.

"Forty!"

"Thirty."

"Twenty-five," said the Warden with finality.

"Ah, deal!" Evie beamed as the Warden relented.

"Cut him down!" he called to the guard at the gallows. Quickly, the man's scimitar slashed through the rope and the prisoner hit the ground. Barely conscious, the prisoner looked up through blurred eyes and saw Evie smiling at him; a smug, satisfied smile.


End file.
